Love, Hate, and the Fate of International Organizations: The Psychological Life of Global Governance (1900–Present)

6-7 May 2026

Day 1: Wednesday, 06 May 2026 | 8:30 – 19:45

 

 

WELCOME AND INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

 

OPENING LECTURE

Carolyn Biltoft: Worldly Projections: IOs as (Historical) Good and Bad Objects

PANEL I

Letters to the World: IO’s as Recipients of Impossible Demands

PANEL II

Law as Psychic Theatre: Redemption, Betrayal, and the Limits of Legal Form

PANEL III

Projection onto the Forum: Fear, Sovereignty, and the Deliberative Stage

 

METHODS ROUNDTABLE

The Psychic Life of International Organizations

KEYNOTE

Joanna Bourke: Making and Unmaking Life: The Politics and Psychology of Fear from the 950s to the Present

Day 2: Thursday 07 May 2026 | 09:00 – 17:15

PANEL IV

Good Object, Bad Object: Idealization, Ridicule and the Splitting of Institutional Attachment

PANEL V

The IO as a Vessel: Sanctuary, Moral Cosmology, and the Dream of Planetary Care

PANEL VI

The IO as a Vessel: Sanctuary, Moral Cosmology, and the Dream of Planetary Care

CLOSING DISCUSSION AND REMARKS